There’s no Son Heung-min (£9.8m) or Mohamed Salah (£13.2m) to select as we put together our Scout Picks ‘bus team’ for Gameweek 21 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL).
With over a week to go before the deadline, and domestic cup matches aplenty in between, there’s a lot that could change before we finalise our selection on Friday 12 January.
Erling Haaland‘s (£13.9m) fitness is the great unknown but we’ve budgeted for a XV that includes the Norwegian striker in this ‘bus team’ on the off chance he is given the green light.
The sight of him in training on Wednesday was an encouraging sign in that regard.
We are, as ever, limited by certain restrictions in our selections:
- An £83.0m budget for our starting XI
- An overall squad limit of £100.0m
- No more than three players per team
GAMEWEEK 21 FIXTURES
Above: The Gameweek 21 fixtures sorted by ‘difficulty’ on our Season Ticker
THE LIKELY LADS
With Son and Salah on international duty and Haaland’s true fitness status unknown, there aren’t too many Scout Picks shoo-ins at this early juncture.
Compounding the uncertainty are some tricky-to-call fixtures.
Bournemouth away will not be the cakewalk it once was for a Salah-less Liverpool based on recent Cherries, while an Everton side ranked sixth for fewest goals conceded will be no pushovers for inconsistent travellers Aston Villa at Goodison Park.
Then there’s Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur: will we get the United that beat Chelsea and Aston Villa recently or the one that slumped to defeats against Bournemouth, West Ham United and Nottingham Forest?
Arsenal representation looks likely, at least, even after their recent blip.
Still boasting the joint-most clean sheets (seven) and the fewest expected goals conceded (16.64) in the division, they’ll be up against a Crystal Palace side potentially without the influential Michael Olise (£5.9m) – although his unavailability is still to be confirmed.
The Eagles are surprisingly without a clean sheet in nine matches. Bukayo Saka (£9.0m) has been threatening a haul for a while without ever delivering: he’s had 27 shots in the last seven Gameweeks alone, a tally that no other midfielder can top.
Elsewhere, a West Ham United side on a run of four consecutive clean sheets come up against a Sheffield United outfit who are the lowest goalscorers in the division. Alphonse Areola (£4.2m) gets the nod between the Scout Picks sticks – and we all know what happens next when a shut-out is actually expected of him…
IN CONTENTION
Going without a Liverpool midfielder or forward in our bus team seems odd after they set a new xG record in their demolition of Newcastle United on New Year’s Day. It’s just the uncertainty over which combination of attackers that Jurgen Klopp will plump for that makes us swerve Darwin Nunez (£7.4m), Diogo Jota (£7.7m) and Luis Diaz (£7.3m) for now, but any line-up clues or injuries from the FA/EFL Cup matches in the coming week could easily elevate one of them into Scout Picks contention.
We’re also through the looking glass and living in a world where Bournemouth are currently a more competent defensive unit than Liverpool’s Gameweek 20 opponents Newcastle…
Sticking with the fixture at the Vitality Stadium, Dominic Solanke (£7.1m), who was very unlucky to blank in Gameweek 20, is producing such off-the-chart attacking numbers selecting him alongside a Liverpool player or two in a Scout Picks XI wouldn’t necessarily be a hedging of bets.
It doesn’t get any easier for Eddie Howe’s beleaguered side, who come up against Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions. An eye-watering 27 big chances have been conceded by the Magpies in the last six Gameweeks; they only conceded 51 in the whole of 2022/23.
Phil Foden (£7.8m), Julian Alvarez (£7.0m) and Haaland are all in contention, depending on the Norway international’s fitness.
Richarlison (£6.9m), Dejan Kulusevski (£7.1m) and Alejandro Garnacho (£4.8m) are also in the thinking for the potential basketball match at Old Trafford. A whopping 39 shots were exchanged in the reverse fixture in Gameweek 2 and neither team has made strides defensively since. Of the FPL midfielders available in Gameweek 21, Richarlison and Garnacho are first and second for xG in their last six matches.
And finally in this section, Gameweek 20’s highest points-scorer, Cole Palmer (£5.6m), gets the chance to build on his excellent points-per-start average of 7.3 against a Fulham side that have shipped 16 goals – and kept no clean sheets – in their last six away matches.
THE LONG SHOTS
Brentford v Nottingham Forest and Burnley v Luton Town are two of the more intriguing clashes of Gameweek 21.
Forest are the hardest-hit Premier League team in terms of departures for AFCON, while neither they nor opponents Brentford have kept a clean sheet in the last nine Gameweeks. Chris Wood (£4.9m), Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.7m), Anthony Elanga (£5.0m) and the returning Ivan Toney (£7.9m) are perfectly placed to exploit the defensive deficiencies at either end.
Like Wood, Burnley’s Lyle Foster (£4.8m) and Luton Town’s Elijah Adebayo (£4.8m) are making budget FPL forwards cool again. Adebayo has four goals in his last six run-outs if you include the abandoned clash with Bournemouth, while Foster averages the same points per start (4.6) as Darwin!
Burnley being bottom of the table for set-play attempts conceded over the last six Gameweeks will also interest the Poundstretcher’s Alexander-Arnold, the creative Alfie Doughty (£4.4m).
Everton v Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove Albion v Wolverhampton Wanderers are quite delicately balanced. You wouldn’t be shocked at any of the three possible result outcomes in either match, so the likes of Ollie Watkins (£8.9m), Pervis Estupinan (£4.9m), Joao Pedro (£5.4m) and Matheus Cunha (£5.8m) all have their merits without being stand-out Scout Picks candidates.
GAMEWEEK 21 ‘BUS TEAM’ PICKS
*This article/Bus Team has been edited following the injuries to Trent Alexander-Arnold + Jarrod Bowen
